The game isn't about being able to kill your opponent at every curve. The game is absolutely about being better than your opponent at three main focuses: Teamwork, farming, and mechanical ability.

When you're in a solo lane, you're pushing to out smart an opponent, not just by killing minions and pushing someone out of position, but to set up potential kills for the team with proper rotation and communication. When it comes down to it, you should also be ready for any invades on yourself with proper warding, map awareness, and by looking out for potential baits.

There have been multiple posts today all talking about how the side-solo lane (because of the jungle), and mid lane are now camp fests, because they're too afraid of getting ganked.

Pretending there isn't a full time jungler, people were still getting pushed down by proper rotation. And the first thing you would hear is "WHERE THE HELL WAS THE MIA?"

The MIA doesn't exist. This silly fantasy world that you live in where the rest of your team needs to constantly do your job is horrendous. If your sides aren't covered by wards, then you deserve to die. Because you're the one playing PvE, not the jungler. You're the one thinking "Well, I'm gonna gear up do defeat this Odin, or this Apollo."

No, you're going to gear up so you can get a good k/d/a and brag about it. Cut the BS. That gold you have when you leave the base should be spent on consumables. That's why they are there.

Level 9 Mid lane with 150g leaving the base? Ward both reds. Only 75g? Ward one, and hug that side.

Level 6 solo tank having trouble cause you keep getting pushed. Don't buy boots 2 just yet, and stock up on some wards. Help out you and mid. The solo exp will carry you, so long as you manage to be able to dodge a few hits here and there.

This is how MOBAs work. Wards. Win. Games.

I'm not saying the jungle isn't broken, or that the hyper-carrying of some gods isn't over tuned. That isn't what this is about. This is a wake up call to those of you who are blaming the meta for your losses. Games change, and you have to roll with the punches. If something is overpowered, it's overpowered for both teams to abuse. In time, if the developer and community agree, it will be changes. Focus, Phoenix, Black Cleaver, Fenrir, Sawed Off Shotgun, and an infinite number of other things have all been changed.

I know you don't want to hear it, but the game IS IN BETA. This is HiRez's chance to get everything they want to test out of the way. Instead of complaining fruitlessly, and repeatedly, state your opinion constructively, what should be changed, why you believe so, any possible solutions, and move on. If you feel something is so completely broken, see what others think. Read up. Perhaps you're approaching it wrongly. Hell, Superman gets tripped up on some new shit sometimes, that guy has literally everything going for him. Frost Breath, nigh-on infinite strength, as fast as light, that jawline doe, cushy ass job, impenetrable skin... And still, my man gets smacked around by some bald dude ina suit.

Respectfully, Brandon, I disagree wholeheartedly when it comes to the current jungle.

Normally, I would agree that people just need to change how they play in order to counter the meta shift. But right now, that isn't possible, even with what you suggest for a few reasons. But because you're saying:

This is how MOBAs work. Wards. Win. Games.

We'll look at exactly how Smite is comparing to the current MOBAs out there:

1.) If we look at comparable MOBAs, and the jungle role there, everyone has 6 item slots at the beginning of the game to toss their wards into. Smite has two consumable slots and in order to buy wards, it costs you 75g. You're losing out on the ability to buy pots to sustain you, as well as early game lane power (which means you'll have to play an inherently more boring lane) in order to make sure you don't get ganked early.

2.) While on the topic of ward costs, we can again look at comparable MOBAs. League is our best bet here, because though wards fill the same purpose in DoTA/HoN, stats/items work differently there, so supports and warding is rather different (since how stats scale allow very different amounts of ward purchases).

Now in league, wards cost 75g. So we're definitely comparable here, that's good, right? Well, not really, and that's because we're talking about relatives here. In League, you might buy a ward for 75g, but the enemy jungler won't gain that 75g advantage over you extremely quickly. In Smite? Bumba's is currently making one neutral harpy allow for the jungler to make up that difference. That's not good. That means the more wards you buy - the quicker they'll outpace you and be able to counterward you if they know you're warding. Especially since in League, they'd normally have to pink ward (125g) to counter yours. In smite, they only need to spend the same 75g to take yours out.

3.) Now let's look at jungle setup. In League, you generally have to worry about 2 gank zones (some picks can come over the thick wall which means you need to watch out for 3 zones). That means you can generally efficiently keep track of the jungler roaming toward your lane with a single well-placed ward. (Because after all, you can hug one side!) Along with that, you generally don't have to leave your lane for too long to go ward it, so you're not losing out on much exp, and you don't put yourself in a ton of danger to go ward so long as you're not afraid of your tribush. And because you can hold so many wards at once, and generally don't need to overuse wards, you also aren't worried about being forced back to buy more.

Now let's look at Smite again. Currently, each lane has at least 3 entrances, and 4 walls that can be jumped over. To efficiently ward each sidelane takes 2 wards (1 if you want to be super passive about it). Because of winding jungle paths, it takes quite a bit to roam out and place a ward, which means you're losing exp, and risking running into the jungler you were trying to ward in the first place. Mid needs to use 2-3 wards to do this, and if they want to hug one side and play a passive lane, they can use one ward, but it needs to be placed around the red/fg area, which could be a significant distance from the wave. Thus, they're losing out on exp and gold once again. This isn't to mention that people can only buy three wards at a time max, so they're going to have to back more often for them.

While you're losing out on all this gold and exp? Oh yeah, that jungler is gaining money and exp faster than your midlane without ganks, and they might come gank you quite a few levels ahead at any time.

It's not that I completely disagree with the jungler, I just disagree with how quickly they snowball without ever visiting a lane, and how much danger that provides the lanes. Solo laning is boring. Not because I'm getting killed by jungle ganks, but because I'm forced to play so far back to avoid said jungle ganks because there's no way to guarantee they won't come to me without putting myself further behind them.

To further extrapolate this:

I've played 4 games tonight in which I played mid and was camped incredibly hard by the enemy jungler. In those 4 games, I died twice to actual jungle ganks. One of those happened when the jungler had gained a 2 level lead on me due to their mid zoning me while they constantly visited. In three of those games, I heavily warded myself from them, and backed off only when I saw them in the ward.

Every one of those games was a stomp against my team, and every one of those games I ended with a score like 1/1/2.

How is 1/1/2 fun, aggressive and exciting? I literally feel as though I wasn't even given a chance these games, and instead had to sit back and watch as my team got steamrolled. Two of those games were even disconnected before they finished and we were all sent to lobby - it didn't feel any better.

IMO they should nerf counterwarding. => do it like Dota2. Have two types of wards. The cheaper set gives vision but does not reveal other wards (also lasts slightly shorter). If the jungler wants to counterward he has to invest in the more expensive wards (which could cost anything from a bit more to a ton more [in Dota it's 150g vs. 200g for example, but you don't have to stick by that]) just to get rid of the cheap wards.

Would also make the whole warding/counterwarding "mini game" a lot less lame if counterwarding actually got expensive much more quickly.

Argument: Junglers OP and hence boring. => what counters junglers? wards/vision counters junglers. Hence, buff wards. When it comes to wards junglers have very different interests. Non-junglers have interest in vision, junglers have interest in non-vision. Yet right now the very same item gives vision and non-vision (in the form of revealing other wards). IMO it makes total sense to split these two concerns and have two different items, one for granting vision and one for taking that vision away, priced differently according to importance within the game. (the second item doesn't necessary have to be another ward, it could be also like a smoke thing that only reveals other wards, point being, as long as junglers are too prevalent, it should be more expensive than wards)

While DMBrandon likes to point out that people are noobs by not warding which I don't disagree with, it still requires someone to be passive in a lane in fear of being ganked due to the jungler roaming. Expecting a 5 man public team to pick up wards is well asking a lot. If mid picked up 2 or 3 wards just to save his own ass, he'd be very behind in gold. I find either mid has to be passive or the solo laner has to be passive.

I guess I'm not to keen on certain gods outjungling other gods. I think Bumba's gives too much Gold/XP; especially when you factor in ganks, its way too strong.

So yes, not everyone plays high level play like BMBrandon and that may help some people change their minds.

But for those of us who do understand warding/mechanics, I still find it boring in solo lane or mid lane for the above reasons listed.

It's not though. Asking a lot I mean. It's asking a very simple thing, but people aren't used to it. They're used to whining and bitching about people not calling missing instead of buying wards.

It's very easy to get 2 wards every 3 minutes. It's 150g. Basically 3 pots. The problem is that wards reveal other wards and spawn ward-wars. Which is not good. They need to evolve the ward system, which I've said before as well, way before Bumba's was introduced.

Wouldn't fix the problem. For bumba's in its current form (exp/gold boost) to be acceptable, the gains need to be at least halved. At the moment, even if you ward and they DON'T counterward you, they outfarm. If they keep stepping in your ward and making you back off - their lane will zone you. If this happens too long, the lane and the jungler will outlevel you, and you will just get dived.

Of course Bumba's needs to be tweaked. It's just like a new god being released - it might be OP and need nerfs, or UP and need buffs. In this case Bumba's came out as OP and needs a nerf. It'll come.

If the jungler spends so much time camping your lane that you are getting zoned, it should be no problem for you to bait the gank and have your jungler countergank. This is common practice in any MOBA.

It made two patches - and honestly I'd rather have Dementor's Doll with how unfun Bumba's is making 90% of games for me.

And when I would rather have Dementor's doll, that's a problem.

I've already said, if the item sticks around in its current form the % needs to be reduced so that the jungler is barely keeping up with the Duo lane at best. That's basically how all other MoBAs run their jungle. If this next patch doesn't do that, I know a lot of people who will be upset enough to just stop playing, and honestly, I might too, even if I don't really want to. I just can't get behind the idea of this item when it's causing games to be this ridiculous. :[

I think it's hard to judge bumba's in pure numbers though, because of how new people are to the concept. With a new god you can quickly look at win percentages and make a conclusion whether a nerf/buff is required. That assessment is not so readily available to the devs with Bumba's.

I, too, think that making a passive farming jungler end up barely keeping up with a duo lane is in essence where it should be at.

Personally, I've played with Pon, who now has a record of something like 34-2 with bumba's. That record is better than basically anything he's had before.

Similarly, the majority of the games I've bought it and jungled I've won.

Again, similarly, almost every game I've been in where Bumba's is bought - whoever is the better jungler wins the game for their team. The only exception being when they're both mediocre and one of the lanes feeds heavily.

Honestly, I don't see what the point is of telling people to back off of their complaints at this point and trying to rationalize HiRez's stance.
I understand that it's hard to grab data on the item, but when the majority of your community is obviously upset about the item, the data shouldn't be needed. Similar to the Stats situation. Honestly, I've seen more people opposed to this than the stats patch. It's just not healthy in its current implementation and it doesn't feel good to play with. So if people want to complain - let them. Because if the data's confusing, the community's reaction isn't.

I've seen just as many people in favor of the jungle role as a concept as I've seen people clearly opposed to Bumba's. I don't think it's all that clear at all.

I've also seen a lot of fail junglers. Just 'cause the good players do extremely well with it doesn't mean it requires a nerf. They need to take into account casual play as well.

The really good players are the ones who knows how to "exploit" the lack of wards and timing buffs the best. They will naturally snowball a lot easier when the metagame shifts, no matter how it shifts, because they'll adapt faster and learn faster.

That said, I've already said I agree completely that it requires a nerf. Perhaps it should've come faster, but it didn't. I don't think that removing the item completely is the right course of action, but the majority of the complainers seem to think so.

I've also seen a lot of fail junglers. Just 'cause the good players do extremely well with it doesn't mean it requires a nerf. They need to take into account casual play as well.

This is faulty reasoning. You don't look at a ladder, see some broken steps and say "Well, the other steps are fine, so we need to take those into account and see what we should do!" If something is killing fun in any level of play, whether it be casual or high level, it needs to be looked at quickly. It doesn't matter if the other play levels aren't feeling it =P.

The problem isn't that high level players can exploit lack of wards and buffs well either. It's that they don't even need to pay attention to wards/timers/etc. At this point, the jungler is strong enough as its own role, that it creates an incredibly unhealthy situation for soloQ. If you want, I can cut out a part of my vod from tonight. I played almost perfectly to a jungler (my only mistake really was getting a late beads, but I don't think that actually killed me), the jungler still outleveled me in mid and made so many appearances in mid that I ended up behind the other guy despite consistently winning trades, and I could never kill him simply because if I ever tried, suddenly Fenrir was in my ward. It's not the metagame, it's the gold/exp gains the jungler is receiving. I'm super happy to see a nerf on that percentage. Whether or not it'll be a big enough help is another story.

Hell, playing solo lane is boring as fk with or without a jungle role. You're basically either in a winning position because of your God countering or semi-countering your opponent, or you're in a losing position because of the opposite. Either way, one of you will be playing passively, the other will be farming and pushing all day, since his opponent is so passive.

The only thing a jungle role changes about that is it balances the scales slightly. The guy pushing all day has to ward in order to look out for ganks.

That said, Bumba's/Jungle does need a rebalance. It shouldn't be passively outfarming a duo lane.

It depends on who the 2 enemy gods are and whether or not they have speed buff. As Guan Yu in the tournament yesterday, I took full advantage knowing that a bacchus/anhur (without speed) couldn't zone me out as the bacchus had belly flop first (so he couldn't stun me until much later) and I just pushed the wave with my 3 and couldn't be interrupted with any of their knockups. If they were to go on me, I had creep advantage as my "2nd" player.

The thing is Toliy - not everyone is playing draft pick. It's hard to counterpick there. Along with that, lots of soloQs aren't going to switch lanes with you if you do end up in an unfortunate matchup in your 1v2.

And along with that, even in the happy world of a 1v1 lane on both sides? The jungler is still getting a ridiculous unfair advantage at the moment, and it's making ganks terrifying enough that you have to play far back and ward. Not only that, the wards will put you further behind because they'll make the gold back faster than you. It's a vicious cycle. :/

While it does make positioning more important, and it makes certain skirmishes more fun to play - for the most part it brings a passive play to Smite that wasn't there before, it isn't even close to casual-friendly, and honestly, for those of us that liked the aggressive lanes that were around before, the feeling of outplaying your opponent in lane/etc. Those feelings are gone, because now, when you have an advantage and that jungler hops into your ward and stares at you, you have to give the advantage back. Or when you're mid lane, you both just hit level 5, and suddenly a Fenrir pops over your red wall, ults and carries you back to their tower for a kill just because you didn't want to waste that 250 gold on lvl 1 beads, well, these situations just aren't fun to be in.

r/Reddit is almost all casuals that dont know what they're talking about honestly, with minimal if no game mechanic understanding... People dont wanna get better, they dont wanna ward, they just wanna suck and play a 2v2 lane all day, they dont wanna be aware. You look at league/dota casuals they ward they call out everything but smite is just stubborn i guess...

And i dont belive bumbas needs a nerf at all bumba has nothing to do with this, with bumbas you stay at the same level as a solo laner and that's it. The whole idea of a jungler is what has peoples panties in a bunch. I guess people dont want a more in depth and fun roles they just wanna stay in lane. It takes skill to jungle it takes skill to solo lane it takes skill not to get ganked mid (meaning just wards).

Maybe if he didn't insult all of /r/smite he wouldn't be downvoted, nor the fact his argument is just flawed.

And i dont belive bumbas needs a nerf at all bumba has nothing to do with this, with bumbas you stay at the same level as a solo laner and that's it.

As of now, Bumba's enables the jungler to outlevel the mid player without ganks. As a roaming, all killing machine, it really promotes selfish play in solo queue. The jungler is this almighty god that hands out ganks when he feels they are deserved, and you can't do anything else if you don't know where the opponent's jungler is.

It takes skill to jungle it takes skill to solo lane it takes skill not to get ganked mid (meaning just wards).

What? It takes skill to clear camps? And skill = buying wards? Smite's skill is (or rather was) hitting skill shots and knowing when you could go for kills in lane. If the skill is now knowing how to spend 75 gold, that is not a difficulty change for the better.

I played several games where a Nezha called jungle and proceeded to reach level 20 before everyone else and win us the game with an impressive kill score, i was still bored out of my mind watching my opponents last hit while we dance zamba around our minions, To a lot of people (including myself) the most attractive part of Smite was the aggresive laning phase followed by the teamfight part of the game(that all Moba's have) If i wanted to play a farming game for the first 15 min of the game except for when my jungler kindly decides to gank(which is a problem in and of itself) i might as well play LoL or Dota

go play LoL or DOTA then. This mentality that Smite needs to stay exactly the way it has been since closed beta is ridiculous. If you don't like it, no one is forcing you to play. In the mean time, provide some insight into what you think the problems are specifically and then submit them in a non-overly critical manner for others to view and discuss instead of some snarky comment about how you are bored by the game.

But if the game is losing its excitement, that in itself is insight to the problems are. /u/keytotruth had pointed out that many players were into Smite because of how different the meta was from other moba's and how active the game is. HiRez is running the risk of losing many players by removing a reason for many people playing it in the first place, the hyper aggressive early game.

if i wanted to play just another moba id play League or DoTa they do it much much better than smite. I liked Smite because they were trying to be different, The 3rd person, All skillshots, no last hitting and no dedicated jungler so that everyone fought over buff camps.

the game was more action oriented and thats what i liked about it a lot less passive play and more pushing and roaming by EVERYONE not just one person.

now it just seems like bumbas makes the game fun for 2 players while the other 8 have to play super passive.

and people are stating their opinions they want it removed because they don't like it, just because their opinions doesn't go along with yours doesn't mean they are idiots and need to "read up" on the mechanic.

It's not fun. The moba genre is crowded. Smite learning curve is already too steep to attract the types of gamers HiRez is targeting. If buying wards and hugging the adjacent wall is necessary to win, that's a major game design flaw on my opinion. And another barrier between playing the game and having fun when there are already too many.

The 'MOBA' genre is by far the genre with the highest learning curve. It's just a part of the genre, you can't change that without making the game too casual and too shallow. So stop worrying about it, it's still a fun game to play when you don't know what's going on and so people will learn (like I am).

HiRez is trying to make a more casual game with a friendlier community. Your elitist bm is exactly the kind of thing they want to avoid. As you said, moba is relatively deep by default. Adding unnecessary, unfun complexity deters casual players directly by design, and indirectly by fostering a community intolerant of casual gamers.

'unfun' is a pointless term as it is highly subjective. What you find fun, I could find boring. As such it's useless to think about.

Edit: Also I wasn't being elitist. I'm trying to say that you shouldn't stop features being added in simply because they're difficult to understand. That will make the game shallow as anything deemed 'too hard' won't be added, and will lower the skill ceiling of the game and that ruins it for people who want to better themselves and always want to learn and strive to be better.

And it's pretty obvious that LoL has a huge casual crowd (which can easily be persuaded to play SMITE) so I don't think the game needs to become more casual.

It sure seems like a lot of people are having less fun than they were.

It's useless for developers to think about how fun a game is? That is obviously ridiculous.

And history has shown it is exceptionally difficult to pull players away from anomalously successful games like lol. Why do you think they are trying to bring new players into the market instead of converts?

It's useless for developers to think about 'fun' if it comes before good game mechanics and competitive balance. Mindlessly spamming spells may be fun for people but allowing that to happen would probably be imbalanced and bad for game design.

Also I love SMITE and Dota, but hate LoL. I think it's possible to get players from either game. These games aren't as time consuming as MMO's and so splitting your time between this is really feasible.

Finally people tend to react negatively to change. The loud minority get loud when change occurs instead of learning to deal with it. While I think that Bumba's is too strong, I don't think the idea of a jungler is detrimental. It just needs to be balanced.

First of all, "is it fun?" is probably the primary concern of 100 percent of game developers. Good game design, by definition, necessitates fun. The idea that developers would say, 'this isn't fun, but it's better game design!' is so obviously absurd, it's clear you are unwilling to reflect rationally on your stance.

How long does it take to reach max level in an average MMO? How long does it take to reach level 30 in smite? How long does it then take to acquire the skill to compete competently in ranked? Time investment is comparable between the genres.

Online games are notorious for hating change. On that point, I agree. The vocal minority is something developers and community managers have to be wary of. But I can't think of an instance where a community has been overwhelmingly vocal like this, and hasn't been right in the end.
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Look at druids and warlocks in wow s3. Or dks and paladins at wotlk launch. Mages in cataclysm... Blizzard shrugged off the complaints as a vocal minority for far too long in each instance, only to admit later the community had been right all along.

Also the idea behind fun != good design is that not everyone may find that thing fun and that if it's bad for game design and balance, is it really worth doing just to please a crowd. Usually this happens where low level pubs find something fun, but higher level players find that it ruins it.

I agree that jungling needs changing (I've never said it didn't) but I really think that removing it or nerfing it into uselessness is a terrible idea. I think it just needs to be balanced in a way where the rest of the team isn't reliant on a jungler's success, but instead have a jungler aid them. Which is probably hard with a LoL model of jungle, or without gods specifically designed for jungling.

To move on from this debate which seems to be turning into a pointless ragefest. In my opinion, the problem with jungling as it is, is that those who can jungle are able to scale too well (the junglers end up being carries) which is absurd and you can see that the same thing happened in DotA with Lycanthrope, and he had his jungling gutted because it was stupid. Also Bumba's mask gives too much xp/gold and the jungler's are able to get ahead too much and even after being shut down still be dominant in xp/gold. Also it seems like with the 2slot consumable slot, lack of vision/true-sight ward system and high cost of ward coverage necessary to deal with gankers that junglers have too easy a time of applying that huge advantage in ganks.

I started playing this game cause I was having more fun with it than i was with league, in league everything is set in stone, you MUST take so n' so (don't have flash? gonna get ganked and have a bad time)

Did I read the tips right? - a solo tank who is being zoned out and is not getting any gold and xp, instead buying items to have a chance vs 2 has to NOT buy items but wards? lol sure, as lvl 5 guan, wards gonna be very helpful vs lvl 7 or 8 anhur and ymir . Screw defense items when you have wards lol.

Also, people kept saying - Nezha is too strong and snowballs very easily so "pros" have been saying "shut him down and he is not a problem". So now Nezha gets to snowball even more and virtually without any risk compared to old "boring" meta. Now, first time you see Nezha he is 3 lvls above you and he just poops on your face.

I don't speak for everyone but Solo laning IS boring. I play games because i want to have fun. having to play passive so one person can dominate later is not fun. This is why i don't play other MOBAs. A vocal amount of people do not like the item because it steals the enjoyment from the game having to stay back and be passive. The thing most players want to do is make a sweet play be them tank, support, carry. But bumba's robs that from the game by making it so one person makes plays while the others wait on them. That makes the game boring.

I thought most of the community disapproving of Bumba's have said that, although in various words. Many times people have pointed out the previous stance of HiRez not wanting a jungle role in the game. People have often pointed out how a map rework is needed for a jungle role to be enjoyable, not just throwing a required item into the game.

Also, how dare various people not liking the role dislike it for various reasons. We all must have the exact same opinions at all time. /s

NO it's not most of community it's just casuals on r/smite that disapprove. And only because people hopped on the band wagon they hate bumbas because they dont know how to adapt. Like when a new god comes out OPOPOPOPOP that's all people say cuz they dont know how to fight against em. Sprayarn that made a post about got super greedy he pushed up with no wards to their tower and did not buy beads till after he died two times to a fenrir. He was his own doing.

EDIT: Also, is there something wrong with playing the game casually? The way you commented in this thread was using the term as an insult, but you do realize many people are playing Smite, a videogame, for fun?

It's rare enough you get to make a play do to being outnumbered anyway. No matter how much you ward, you still wont have vision on the Jungler at all times so you are waiting longer than you normally would, this is part of the passivity that people are complaining about.

In addition, that Jungler will find it easier to counter ward you due to already being in the jungle and therefore not missing out on their exp and gold by actively warding.

Further, they are out levelling and making more gold than you from Bumba's anyway, so not only will you be playing passively waiting for that Jungler to appear somewhere before you can make any sort of move, usually you wont be able to make said move as you are lacking items from all the wards you are having to buy.

Not too behind from the amount of wards you are buying? Well guess what, you're still 1v2 so any 'plays' you'll be making are to move slightly further up and clear a creep wave rather than really engage anything.

Your duo opponents will need even less wards due to having their jungler essentially be a moving Line of Sight, and even if they were to be ganked by, say, your mid (which is putting your mid so far behind) your mid is only making the fight a 2v2 so the gank isn't particularly powerful.

How so? A lot of what makes Smite fun is the immediacy of the action. The close up 3rd person view and all the skill shots make you feel so much more attached to the person and the action. One reason I got into Smite was the level 3 engagements. Shit is fun as hell when you're weak, but you know damn well your opponent is too. Removing the first 10 minutes of action (in solo casual queue) kills my drive to play.

I know you don't want to hear it, but the game IS IN BETA. ... Instead of complaining fruitlessly, and repeatedly, state your opinion constructively, what should be changed, why you believe so, any possible solutions, and move on.

Isn't this not what people are doing, though? They dislike the option, and they are suggesting ways to fix it. Yes, many people are saying remove it, but that is still a method of changing what they dislike.

Being a beta, HiRez should want to and should listen to the community feedback of items and changes. Yes, they should take it all with a grain of salt (I remember tiered actives coming out and the immediate dislike they had, despite probably a very approved of fix in the eyes of players. People will always not like change.), but how else is the community supposed to get their opinions out besides talking about what they don't like.

So, chill out. Patches come and go. You'll be fine; I promise. <3

I dunno about you, but I love these conversations between the people pro and anti Bumba's. Its a great way to see the mix of the community, and I've seen many comments that are simply ways I wouldn't have viewed it (A quick example is even in this thread by /u/iGAnatoLiy talking about how his game knowledge of what skills taken at what level make his 1v2 lane fun for him). Even as nothing more than a casual player, I get a lot out of these discussions, both on the end I'm for and the item I want to be removed forever. But the community should happily complain if something feels wrong in the game, and I honestly feel that the forced meta by Bumba's feels wrong.

Im sure someone has said this, but im lazy and i dont want to read all the comments. But the VAST majority of people playing smite do it because they can have fun. I dont want to sit by myself for 10 minutes and kill creeps until shit starts happening. I want to have a good game and be able to make plays. The teamwork it takes to make jungling work well could be used to play well in lane, which would help more than 1 person, and not make a large chunk of the game suck for half of the team. Im not trying to say jungling doesnt work, im just saying that i don't like it.

How many wards do you see in pubs? I would say in over 90% of the games I play, I am the only person warding. No matter what I say, the response is always 'but I need pots, or that's the tanks job'.

The item needs to be canned or nerfed, jungling doesn't go we'll with the game unless they make it more practical to ward, or mor difficult to gank. Cheaper wards or longer lasting wards would be an option. Limiting jungle entrance routes would be another I guess, but less a fan of that. An ability to punch selfish non-team junglers in the face would be the best. A lot of bad games yesterday, a lot of bad junglers.

Until the meta is shifted to a specific format where the solo lane is always the fire giant side, the 2v1 lane...on both sides...will continue to be an issue with how the game is played.

The reason the 1 - 1 - 2 + Jungler meta works well in other Mobas is while the map is still mirror images, because they're NE to SE always, and the view is isometric, bot lane is always bot lane as there are reasons it's designated as the duo lane. For example, you send 2 bot in League of Legends because early dragon control is much more important early game than Baron control.

It's an inherent flaw with the game for the meta to be the 1 - 1 - 2 meta, wherein right for one team is opposite of right for the other team, therefore having a 2v1 lane, and leaving the lay folk to have this "this game is turning into a pve farm/snooze fest." I'm not saying the 3rd person perspective is flawed. It's fresh and new and different and is what will separate SMITE from other MOBAs. Until the community can get it's head around the idea that the solo lane isn't always going to be left or right, the "jungler makes solo lanes boring" will be continue to be brought up.

Don't say other MOBAs. What you described is nothing like Dota. In Dota it's more like SMITE, in that there is a common situation of 1-1-3 v 3-1-1 lanes. Or a team places the tri-lane against the enemy tri-lane, forgoing the jungle as a means of gold/xp for the supports.

The only issue I see with the jungling of SMITE is that even when shut down junglers can still get too much XP. Also SMITE shouldn't care about what other games of it's genre (I really hate the term MOBA) are doing. SMITE should do what makes SMITE the best game, who fucking cares if it's an exact rip of LoL or DotA or fucking Hello Kitty Adventure Party? You people really need to get over the idea that there are similarities with LoL and SMITE, because the fact is there are a lot more similarities to LoL than to DotA, but you don't complain about that do you? No you complain that something is changing and is new and needs to be balanced.

Yeah. You're right. SMITE can't learn something from the most popular game in the world right now. Not once was I complaining, I was simply stating why it isn't working as a role in this game as well as it does with others. As for crying about it being called a moba... well... that's what it is. You're gonna have to get over that one. And because of that, it's going to be compared to other mobas.

But the 'other MOBAs' are nothing like LoL. As I said Dota, and inherently HoN are actually closer to SMITE. Honestly though you just sounded like you didn't want the game to be like LoL. I'm saying who cares if it is or not? Just let SMITE be the best game it can be. Maybe we had mixed signals.

I'm not saying I want the game to be like LoL at all. I'm saying the reason the jungler role works in LoL is because it uses a static map, whereas the map in SMITE is dynamic. 2v1 lane isn't fun, for anyone involved. The solo is bored until the jungler gets over to gank, and the duo doesn't enjoy staring at someone killing minions under a turret.

Until there is a specific way that the community accepts to set it up in such a way that you have the duo lanes against each other and the solos against each other, the jungle mechanic, as it is now, makes the game passive/boring. Yeah, buy wards, wards save lives, we get that. Unfortunately due to how wards work in the consumable slot, not to mention the price of starter items/boots/actives/what have you, that hurts the early game of a lot of gods. I'm all for a jungler role. As it stands, the way it was implemented promotes more pve, which is something I DON'T want to see happen in SMITE, as the 20 minutes of farming every game is a big reason I stopped playing League.

I can understand that point, the same thing happens in Dota where the solo is pitted against a 2 or 3 man lane. In comp games that generally devolves into no xp for the solo for about 5 minutes, or they just go into the jungle themselves and just abandon the lane.

That does get pretty boring (but the imo DotA has a much more diverse and interesting mid-late game to make up for it, SMITE is pretty average in that regard).

HiRez hung its hat on being innovative. That was the draw of this game. I don't have strong feelings yet on the mask or jungling.

I will say that farming up to buy things is not really where I find the fun. There should be defined moments in the game where teams demonstrate how to do more with less. I like fights where items aren't the deciding factor.

You must get gold. You must use that gold to buy wards. They are two things the precipitate one another. Ultimately you have to ask, why bother with gold and ward. Just show the whole map. It seems like so much foreplay to get to the same end result.

I've always liked you dmBrandon, but on this and I know you like jungle.. I have to disagree with you so hardly. Smite wasn't like every other moba game. Smite was different. With all these BAD changes. Things will go downhill.

So back to focus and stats? Firegiant nerf undone? Cause that's what people complained about too and Hirez said, for the longest time, that they wouldn't do it (until they did because the community asked for it).

You say complain while i mainly saw well written wall of text of disagreement with this item, with the majority of post agreeing with it, that's not because you're not agreeing that facts are not there, and you can see alot of competitive player agreeing for the removal of this item, but they seem to just complain apparently.

this^ the more passive EU players (a region that across a lot of competitive games is known for being more passive in general i.e. tf2 from my experience at least) are the ones who are being the most vocal against the bumba's meta that the game has now. They say its scary and mid is hard now that they have to worry about the jungler from either red. I say tough shit, figure it out and if its really something most people hate it will be removed, but I think plenty of people are just like me and they love the diversity the role brings to the game. I get to theorycraft all day about how I can make a certain person work for the solo lane build wise, I get to think about how best to go through jungle and what routes to take for my ganks. Keep the bumba's coming I say, and if some comp players leave the game then there's more room for my team and me to rise through the ranks!

I've actually had the most fun playing in the 1v2 lane this past week and tournament (also 2-3 weeks before PAX East) then I've ever had in Smite. It keeps you on your toes EVERY second that you're in that lane. The battle for positioning is so crucial, trying to absorb as much experience from the double lane while avoiding being instantly pounced on is such a rush, it's like a sweet dance of death. Buying time for my jungler to come gank or if being zoned out in the middle of the lane, I can quickly abandon the lane for a little while to surprise gank middle.

Is this jungle meta casual friendly? Absolutely not.

Are pick-and-rolls casual friendly in a pick up game of basketball? No.
Is a screen pass or play action hook casual friendly in touch football? No.
Are you going to setup a 2-3 player defensive trap midfield in a small skirmish of Soccer? No.

At the end of the day, if you're playing Smite for fun and casually, losing shouldn't be an issue to deter you from playing more games of Smite. You will still have fun playing the 2-1-2. If they beat you with a jungle meta that shouldn't matter since you're playing to have fun and you can just call them super duper tryhards if they win.

However, if you're playing to compete in tournaments in order to win, you better be able to adapt and study the ins-and-outs of this new meta and necessary role playstyle changes.

The old 2v2 lane was dependent on what 2 gods were superior to the other 2 gods. For example, Odin+Freya on left lane that has blue+red on Freya vs. a Speed+CD buff Anhur+Ymir. Pre-5 Anhur/Ymir has advantage up until the Odin/Freya hit 5. So it's basically a race of Ymir/Anhur trying to kill Freya really quickly during the pre 5-phase and then playing passive post 5 if they failed to get an early advantage.

Mid lane was also dependent on the matchup. If you win the matchup pre 5, you're going to try to zone out the enemy mid or push wave fast to tower and hit tower knowing you're safe to do so since it was the 2-1-2 meta. Now you have to be on your toes for the jungler and pick your moments of when you can zone or when you can attack tower using LOGIC&REASONING and not this older mindless aggressive mindset.

So basically, there was still a lot of passive play styles before this jungle meta came out.

The fact that this Bumba's Mask enourages there to be a full time jungler and a solo side lane still has plenty of moments of plays still happening. If anything, the game is far more interesting than it was ever before.

At the end of the day, if you're playing Smite for fun and casually, losing shouldn't be an issue to deter you from playing more games of Smite. You will still have fun playing the 2-1-2. If they beat you with a jungle meta that shouldn't matter since you're playing to have fun and you can just call them super duper tryhards if they win.

I don't follow this logic at all. You're painting it completely black and white. I play Smite for fun, but its a competitive game I'm (hopefully) putting 30 minutes or more into a game at a time. There is no way to play that much and not want to win and become invested in winning. Not to mention, the way MOBA's work is you will just about always have someone wanting to try hard and choose the winning comp at all times (I should probably point out I'm assuming solo queue, as that is where 98% of my play is, otherwise setting up the old meta with a 5 queue would be a different story). So its pretty safe to assume that even though I don't want to run jungle, there are 4 other people where only one needs to run it to be a thing.

I do understand that you want the game to be competitive and difficult. I'm sure its a blast when you have 5 people in a mumble, all talking, planning, organizing, and knowing how to rotate and work together. You will never get that in a casual game, and forcing 4 players to rely on 1 player to jump in and give you a break as he snowballs more and more ahead is just not a good direction for Smite to take.

Yes, Smite is balanced around the competitive level. Yes, I would love to see Smite become as popular and well watched as other competitive games. But no, I do not think it is in HiRez's best interest to make Smite only fun and playable at the top tier level.

I completely agree, I'm very, very annoyed by all the people who complain about the current meta including a jungler. That's the point of a game like this, the evolving meta game will encourage someone to look for a certain way to counter the meta, and therefore win, which will eventually be a new meta.

Now this meta was forced due to an item adding, but that essentially means that the evolving meta game has never seen this, so creativity can flow so wildly in terms of how to counter the shown meta. It's how games work.

So, everyone sitting around complaining about Bumba's mask won't do anything. Seriously, search for a way to counter it, or actually take the advice people give you (like warding..) and not just sit there complaining that you have to change your play style due to a changing game.

And yes, the current way to go about is to ward. Instead of buying those 3 health potions as a support you can buy 2 wards and shut off a jungler. Would you rather have a tad more sustain and capability to go aggressive, while having a jungler constantly on you, or just shut off the jungler?

I really just want to see people accept a changing game and changing play style already, honestly.

solo lane shouldnt(CANT) be warding. jungler and mid should be warding or covering the solo to go back because he'll lose lots o tower dmg if he leaves lane without dangerously pushing up lane first. i lasted idk how long odin solo to the point where when i go back i was buying entire items with moneys to spare, im thinkin thats longer than 3 mins

And MIA's should only really be called in this game when you see somebody enter the jungle further down the lane than the mini map vision. But you should always be map aware and shouldnt rely on randoms to watch your back.

Totally agree, the purpose of a BETA tester isn't to complain at every change, it's to constructively give feedback on the changes and identify bugs and imbalances. It's not to have a polished game where everything is static minus the balance updates and skin releases.

All the posts about how:

"Its still in beta" is no excuse

No, if you feel that way then YOU don't understand the concept of a beta, or what it means to participate in them. This is a Beta from a small company on top of that, they can't iron out everything in the same way that someone with the resources of Blizzard can, manage your expectations to match reality.

When it comes to agitation of the way the game is played, in all competitive environments YOU have to adapt and imbalance and shifts in the meta should always be the last reason why something happened to cross your mind. Roll with the punches and find a way to adjust, that's how you develop skill. Complaining never developed skill, give constructive feedback on what you don't like about the new meta and just like Focus, it should change.

Today I played my first 1v2 and 1v1 sidelane with Athena and I have to say it was fun. It was a lil' tough, but it was fun. Sure i had to be a lil' more passive, but passive =/= boring. Plus it helped me learn to adapt and use my voice commands. Overall soloing sidelanes ain't that bad.

Brandom, nice one here man!
Pretty good explanation, and it's pretty simple to understand too.
People just need to stop complaining and learn how to play, this is a team game, not a solo game. Everyone have a roll in the team, and everyone need to help in a certain way

sorry mister, but that's not true. A jungler can't do anything alone, only if he gets overfarmed. And for that, he needs to even get picks on ganks or clean up, and, guess what, for that he kinda needs the team to help him